留学故事：GAC课程帮我在国外站稳脚跟(图)

王天硕

　　2012年3月 毕业于青岛大学GAC中心及威海市第一中学

　　2012年8月 开始就读于美国伊利诺伊大学香槟校区

　　老实说，我认为对从GAC中心毕业去了国外后，新入学那种茫然不知所措的感觉一个星期内绝对就没了。学术方面我先说说选课。必修科目主要分两种，一种是所有学生都要上的，General Education Requirements（通识教育类课程）。这些课程只要求类别，不要求具体课程。比如有一类逻辑推理课，会给出一个列表，选其中的一门课就行了。另一种就是某一门专业要求的课了。专业课一般要按顺序来，修完某些才能修后面的。所有学术上的问题都可以问Advisor。

　　课程的难度。先说数学。根据我目前的经验，大部分人都是要上微积分系列的，Math220（或221），231，241，要按照顺序。220（或221）很简单，讲的是方程函数之类的，高一的知识，不如GAC中心的数学有深度，所以不用担心。至于其他的课，我的体会是，如果感觉这门课很简单，那么基本上是学不到东西的，比如什么东亚文化，上课不用听，布置的reading（阅读）不用看，写paper（论文）照样信手拈来。为什么？论语你没学过？甲骨文铭文大小篆你不认识？春秋战国那点事你不知道？这种课就是学不到东西的。所以想学点东西，最好是给自己点难度。开学第一个星期是试听期，随时可以改课，觉得简单或者难了都可以改。

　　作业。这里就体现GAC中心课程的优越性了。这个作业基本上就是中心作业的压缩版（压缩的是给的期限）。要是没有GAC中心的训练，我还真不一定能吃得消。唯一不同的是，这里的作业迟交的话，不是每天扣分10%。要求5:00:00交，你手一抖，网一掉，5:00:01才传上去，老师是不会批改的。

　　在国内可以做的学术准备，我觉得是语言。这里我要痛斥一下国内的中小学英语教育，尤其是语法。举个例子，7:45怎么说？国内教的是a quarter to eight，可是美国人完全不这么说，人家就把这两个数念出来。这种完全活在自己世界里的教育方法和实用脱节，就是在教茴香豆的茴字的四种写法而已。我这么说是因为我深受其害。我现在要同时应付宏观经济、修辞学、东亚文化，每门课一堆reading（阅读），三座大山压在我3000的词汇量上，可以想象我有多痛苦了。

　　It won't be a problem for GAC graduates. I bet we need only a week to get along with the new environment. About university-level academics, I want to firstly mention the process of selecting courses. There are two types of mandatory courses. One type is courses under the general education requirements. You will get a list of the course options under each required category, and you will need to take one course under each category. And the other type is courses required by your desired major. You will need to go step by step about these courses, first some basic courses before being eligible to take some senior courses. You may consult your Academic Advisor with all the academic questions.

　　About acadpressures, I want to talk about math first. As far as I know, in my school most students take Calculus. They first take the Math 220 (or 221) and then Math 231 and 241. Math 220 (or 221) is pretty easy, mostly about equations or functions, and is not comparable to the GAC Math. About other courses, I have a theory-- if you think this course is not challenging, you will not likely to learn much through the course. I will take East Asian Civilization for example. I won't need to go to lectures or do the readings, but I will still write a good paper. Why? I am so familiar with my culture. It is not challenging at all thus I could learn nothing new. So I suggest if you want to learn something, you need to give yourself some challenges. In my school, the first week is a trial week. You can try any course and if the course doesn't work for you, youmay change your idea any time.

　　The coursework. Oh I'd love to say thank god I took the GAC courses. If I did not, I would have a tough time here in school. Teachers give assignments exactly the way my GAC teachers gave me, only with shorter deadlines. One difference is, the punishments here are tougher. In GAC, I would get a 10% deduction each day of my score if my work were late. But here in UIUC, even if my work were only one second late, my teacher won't score my work.

　　The English skills are something you really need to work on before going abroad to study. I hold a totally opposite view of what our Chinese high schools teach students about English, especially grammar. Take an easy example. How do you say the time 7:45? Our high school books tell us "a quarter to eight". But this sounds weird to the native speakers. They never say so. They just put the two numbers "seven" and "forty-five" together. What our high school teaches is either not true or useless. I suffered from this. Now I am handling Macro Economics, Rhetorical Theory, and East Asian Civilization and I am faced with lots of readings. I am having a hard time with the readings because of my limited vocabulary.

　　青岛GAC-ACT中心咨询电话：0532-83780356